AGENT ORANGE USE IN ONTARIO

There is an old joke about prettying something up being comparable to putting lipstick on a pig. That's what I'm seeing so far in the Fact-Finding Panel's report on 2,4,5-T useage in Ontario. Like literally dozens to hundreds of reports I've read the raw data is very interesting but the conclusions and inherent assumptions are a little terrifying.

The Panel has accepted that there are Threshold values for 2,3,7 8 TCDD (Dioxin). They state that they are following standard scientific belief on this matter. Wow. I've done a lot of reading on this worst of the worst Dioxin and my understanding is that it is similar to NDMA in that there is no safe level, period. Also I have to recheck but I believe that they stated that 2,3,7,8 TCDD is not mutagenic. Again I have to say Wow to that. Based on the damage to successive generations that seems very unlikely to me.

Tuesday of this week I posted here some of the details on this Fact-Finding Panel on Herbicide 2,4,5-T. Their Report came out, very quietly it seems to me, in 2013. They suggest that concerns first arose in the early 1960's but it wasn't till 1979 that Ontario stopped using 2,4,5-T. The federal government deregistered it in 1985. The timing of concerns seems appropriate as Vietnamese civilian victims emerged fairly quickly after the spraying started there. The timing of deregistering and stopping use here in Canada however was much less appropriate.

One of the Figures plus text indicates that 90% of the roads and highways in southern Ontario were sprayed on an annual basis for over a decade. At the same time the Panel are suggesting that yes workers involved were exposed above a certain Threshold and thus could have legitimate health damage due to Ontario government (MTO) activity. They are however suggesting the unlikelihood of much larger populations having been adversely affected. Is it possible that the purpose and outcome of this study was pre-ordained to deflect government liability towards its' citizns? Is the current 40-45% of the population expected to have cancer in their lifetimes related to some of these government initiatives?